Additionally, Hoopdata features links to nearly every angle you might want to take on pro basketball from the statistical to the sublime. In fact, Hoopdata is an excellent starting point for almost any research you want to do on the NBA.

For more about what players are like personally, there is of course the blogosphere and Bleacher Report among others, but you can find good information from the NBA's History and Bio pages and a lot of fill-in info from Wikipedia.

But my favorite find of late is the NBA page for tracking free agents at NBA.com.

Here you can monitor all the available free agents, including stars such as Deron Williams, Steve Nash and Jason Terry whose moves are generally well-covered in the media.

For me though it's been even more fun of late to keep an eye on the aging and less relevant guys and character actors such as Ben Wallace, Brian Cardinal and Juwan Howard (to see if they live to see another NBA season). This is where I'll do the research for my next slide show "The Magnificent Over 37: Top Free Agents Pushing 40 Who Haven't Retired Yet."

For those of you adept at Googling, finding various information isn't too hard but these links are your pathway to basketball nerd heaven. I am especially looking forward to arguing with trolls who will tell me how their guy is better than my guy who sucks anyway, and I'll simply reply that when you consider:

OUR CRACK RESEARCH TEAM IS HERE TO HELP

where

,

,

.

adjusted for team pace and normalized to the league to become:

well, it really isn't even close.

As an added benefit, your friends will be impressed and women will find you irresistible.

Enjoy your research and remember to go outside and get a little sun and fresh air every once in a while. Maybe even shoot some hoops.